“Pure Comedy” by Father John Misty

"Pure Comedy" is the title track of the third album Josh Tillman made as Father John Misty after walking away from Fleet Foxes, released on April 7, 2017, through Bella Union in Britain and Europe and Sub Pop everywhere else. Tillman wrote the words and music himself and produced it with Jonathan Wilson; Trevor Spencer engineered and shared the mixing desk with the pair.

The record it names was mostly written in 2015, and it's Tillman taking on the whole human project at once: fame, politics, technology, the idea of progress, the environment, getting old, social media and his own place in all of it. He even emailed his fan club an 1800-word essay on its symbolism. At heart, the album is a fable about a species that shows up with its brain only half built and survives by leaning on slightly older half-built brains.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.